Headlines

Shares of airline Azul plunged on Wednesday after the Brazilian company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, despite months of efforts to restructure mostly pandemic-era debt, Reuters reported. The filing, which may scupper a potential merger with peer Gol, makes the carrier the latest in a series of Latin American airlines to file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of the depression the industry suffered in the initial months of COVID-19. U.S-listed shares of Azul fell some 40% in premarket trade, making a 70% decrease in its stock year to date.

A Canadian aluminum trader that had been struggling to restructure its debt has filed bankruptcy in the US and Canada, saying the American trade war helped push the company over the edge, Bloomberg Law reported. Sinobec Group Inc. arranges deals between sellers and buyers of aluminum ingots, as well as finished items like building products, shower doors and fences, the company said in court papers filed in federal court in Illinois on Tuesday.

Fewer companies went through the insolvency process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in financial year 2025, according to the credit rating firm ICRA, the Economic Times of India reported. As per the ICRA, only 724 companies were admitted for insolvency, a sharp 28 percent drop form 1,003 in the previous year. The number of approved resolution plans also dipped slightly to 259 from 263. In the last quarter of FY2025, lenders recovered about 70 percent of the admitted claims in some cases, registering the highest levels so far, said the ICRA.

Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co.’s efforts to win backing for a $14.1 billion offshore restructuring are running into resistance as key bank creditors say failure to accept some of their demands would be a “deal breaker,” Bloomberg Law reported. The company, once China’s largest property developer by contracted sales, got a few months’ reprieve from its liquidation petition hearing on Monday, as High Court Judge Linda Chan decided to adjourn the case to Aug. 11.

Canada's Hudson's Bay Company plans to lay off 8,347 employees, or 89% of its workforce, by Sunday when it will conclude its liquidation sale and shut all stores, according to documents published late on Monday. Hudson's Bay, Canada's oldest retail chain, has been part of the country's landscape and identity for 355 years, anchoring malls from coast to coast. Founded in 1670, the Bay's brick-and-mortar department stores are following similar retail businesses struggling with declining foot traffic and competing with online commerce. The layoffs follow rising joblessness in Canada.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand cut interest rates further Wednesday in a bid to stoke an economic recovery that some economists are warning is under threat, the Wall Street Journal reported. The official cash rate was cut by 25 basis points to 3.25%, the latest in a string of cuts that started in mid-2024. In making its decision, the RBNZ highlighted growing concerns about the global growth outlook amid a destabilizing trade war between the world’s largest economies. “The recently announced increases in global trade barriers weaken the outlook for global economic activity.

The world's poorest nations face a "tidal wave of debt" as repayments to China hit record highs in 2025, an Australian think tank warned in a new report Tuesday, the Japan Times reported. China's Belt and Road initiative lending spree of the 2010s has paid for shipping ports, railways, roads and more from the deserts of Africa to the tropical South Pacific. But new lending is drying up, according to Australia's Lowy Institute, and is now outweighed by the debts that developing countries must pay back.

Germany’s unemployment numbers rose this month, as major firms intensify plans to rejig their workforces in an uncertain economic environment, the Wall Street Journal reported. Seasonally adjusted jobless claims climbed by 34,000 in May, accelerating from the 6,000 increase in April, according to data from Germany’s Federal Employment Agency published Wednesday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected a smaller increase of 14,000. Germany’s adjusted unemployment rate, however, held at 6.3%, matching consensus.

Russia’s successes on the front lines in Ukraine are a big reason why Vladimir Putin isn’t yet ready to sign up to President Trump’s peace efforts. Some of his neighbors fear the success of the war machine now driving its economy means he never will, the Wall Street Journal reported. In the early stages of the war, the Russian president put the country on a footing for a long conflict. Putin retooled the economy to churn out record numbers of tanks and howitzers, while using sizable signing bonuses of up to a year’s salary to raise a massive army.